Charlotte County Florida Weekly

Bad Critters

Invasive creatures arrived through the pet trade in Florida the last three or four decades, and now there is an unprecedented depletion of mammal and non-mammal species alike.



 

Houston, we have a problem.

And sometimes it bites.

Although its reach is statewide, our problem is regional: It extends southward straight down the Florida peninsula from both Martin and Sarasota counties on the east and west to Monroe County.

Unlike the toxic-water dilemma we face in Florida, this problem often has teeth or toxicity: a growing tribe of dangerously invasive creatures. They include tegu lizards, both green and spiny-tailed iguanas, Nile monitors, Bufo or cane toads and Cuban frogs, not to mention some familiar animals ranked by wildlife experts as first-string qualifiers for sheer destructive capacity in the wild: feral cats and feral hogs.

The top-lister, though, is the Burmese python. And it doesn’t just squeeze or constrict.

“I’ve been bitten plenty of times,” says Donna Kalil, a hunter contracted with the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to remove Burmese pythons from levees and roads in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Collier counties. She gets paid $50 for the first 4 feet of python, and $25 for every additional foot.

Donna Kalil and her husband, Craig Kalil. She was wearing her pet snake under her hat the first time the two met, in high school.

Donna Kalil and her husband, Craig Kalil. She was wearing her pet snake under her hat the first time the two met, in high school.

In many cases these invasive critters arrived through the pet trade in the last three or four decades, proving themselves masters of both propagation and camouflage. As hungry as humans and arguably even better at procreating, they either escaped or were released by irresponsible owners into a subtropical wild with few or no native predators to control them.

And now they’re seemingly unchecked by us, or not checked enough. The result: an unprecedented depletion of mammal and non-mammal species alike.

Unfortunately for those who like their Florida ecosystem clean and pristine, roughly 500 animals, plants and fish, many of which never saw the light of a Florida day before the 20th century, are now residents, wildlife ecologists say.

Camo wizards

A python bit Donna Kalil through heavy trousers and socks. COURTESY PHOTOS

A python bit Donna Kalil through heavy trousers and socks. COURTESY PHOTOS

For some this really is paradise, as the Florida Chamber of Commerce calls the Sunshine State, thinking of tourists, not Burmese pythons, for example.

That particular animal has proved unstoppable, so far. Capable of reaching 18-foot lengths and weighing as much as 150 pounds or more, it can catch and eat almost anything that breathes, from marsh rabbits to raccoons, opossums, skunks, foxes, the critically endangered Everglades mink, otters, alligators and white-tailed deer, to name just a few. Females can lay scores of eggs — 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 or more — eggs they incubate for 8 to 12 weeks before the little ones hatch and slip away to a life of eating, reproducing and hiding.

Other critters know how to hide, too — Nile monitors, for example, capable of reaching more than 6 feet in length, able to hunt almost anything both underwater and on land, including in the trees,s, with females laying between 12 and 60 eggs. They have breeding populations in Miami-Dade, Lee and Palm Beach counties and probably elsewhere, according to the FWC.

The FWC encourages removal of green iguanas from private properties by landowners. MeMembers of the public may also remove and kill iguanas from 22 FWC managed public lanlands without a license or permit under Executive Order 17-11. FWC COURTESY PHOTO

The FWC encourages removal of green iguanas from private properties by landowners. MeMembers of the public may also remove and kill iguanas from 22 FWC managed public lanlands without a license or permit under Executive Order 17-11. FWC COURTESY PHOTO

“Unlike invasive plants, invasive – animals are usually very cryptic — hard to detect — and that’s how they’re able to survive so well,” says Rory Feeney, land resources bureau chief at the sprawling, 16-county SFWMD, where many of these critters thrive.

“Researchers can stand next to a python, a radio-tagged snake, and they still have a very difficult time finding it, even when they know exactly where it is.

“They’re highly reproductive, generalist predators. They eat anything they can run down, chase down or constrict and they’re having a huge impact on our native eco-system. Because they’re so reproductive, unless you get them when they’re introduced, they’re difficult to get rid of.

“So until we can find that silver bullet (a snake-destroying technology), we’re deploying resources to contain the problem.”

Donna Kalil patrols the levies at night in her 22-year-old Ford Expedition, looking for Burmese pythons. She protects native snakes, including rattlesnakes and water moccasins, by shooing them off the road before they get run over. COURTESY PHOTOS

Donna Kalil patrols the levies at night in her 22-year-old Ford Expedition, looking for Burmese pythons. She protects native snakes, including rattlesnakes and water moccasins, by shooing them off the road before they get run over. COURTESY PHOTOS

One animal in particular, the iguana (both the green and the spiny-tailed), also burrows into the soft dirt banks of canals and levees, creating costly erosion and the potential destruction of canals and water-control structures maintained by the SFWMD, Mr. Feeney says.

Iguanas are not blue-ribbon biters, though, by reputation. That honor may go to Burmese pythons, which are also champion constrictors and much more adept at surviving in the wild than, say, ball pythons that get eaten rather rapidly.

Chauncey Goss, a member of the SFWMD governing board appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is a new-style leader, not old-style — he doesn’t believe in sitting around an office or a clubhouse somewhere , waiting for that silver bullet, the new technology.

He recently joined a night python hunt to help himself understand the challenge.

“The Glades at night are gorgeous — there are alligators, wading birds, snakes, frogs” — and pythons, he explains.

MAZZOTTI

MAZZOTTI

“Thee interesting thing about hunting them is it’s really hit or miss. There was a guy right behind us who caught a big snake in an area we’d crossed half-an-hour before. That’s just chance. Sometimes big ones are lying up on the levees, and they’re easier to catch. They move. With a little luck and a little skill, you can remove them.”

But a little luck and a little skill is only enough for some modest containment — nobody knows how much, he says. There might be 10 times as many pythons or 100 times as many as they’ve seen and removed, according to experts.

“The governor has taken a real interest in this,” Mr. Goss adds. “He’s close to ‘Alligator’ Ron Bergeron (another governing board member), who has seen the impact of pythons first hand. My guess is we’re putting a dent in the problem, and as the technology gets better, that’s my hope. We are researching this. So is the FWC and the U.S. Geological Survey.”

Python hunter Kevin Pavlidis, left, with Deanna and her mother, Donna Kalil.

Python hunter Kevin Pavlidis, left, with Deanna and her mother, Donna Kalil.

Mr. Feeney thinks of containment optimistically. “Every snake we remove can make a difference. In five to seven years one python could eat hundreds of native animals.”

As for the green and spiny-tailed iguanas, “We’ve stabilized and armored critical cal structures because these holes they dig can cause hydrologic eddies, erosion, and that can jeopardize control structures.

“And we’re working with the University of Florida and talking to trappers and contractors to see how we can deal with that problem. We’re looking at it as a kind of pest control problem. We want to get on some kind of routine, like you do to control insects at home.”

But a little luck and a little skill or even a routine may be only enough for some modest containment — nobody knows how much.

Containment

Black and white tegu lizard.

Black and white tegu lizard.

The containment strategy might prove only a Band-Aid on a wide-open wound, especially since the python is only one of a number of highly destructive troublemakers. But at least it’s a creature whose effect can be defined, which is partly why it has now captured everybody’s attention.

To cite just one number, the SFWMD hunters have killed roughly 2,700 Burmese pythons since March 2017 — Donna Kalil has removed 270 herself from the Glades — and the FWC hunters have killed a thousand more, officials say.

There are two ways to look at that number — at 3,700 hungry, breeding pythons taken out of the wild in roughly 30 months. The experts cite the number either optimistically, as the indicator of tens of thousands of native mammals, birds and reptiles who would likely otherwise have been eaten by a python — or as a bleak hint at how far out-of-hand the problem has gotten.

Frank Mazzotti, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida and arguably the most knowledgeable person in the Sunshine State about the multitude of invasive creatures, says the eradication horse is out of the barn. It’s too late to eradicate the Burmese python with current technologies and by hunting them.

Wild hog COURTESY PHOTO

Wild hog COURTESY PHOTO

Asked how many might still exist, and if there are counts for other invasive species as well, he offers this explanation: “I am going to give you the most accurate estimate of population numbers of this invasive species: A LOT. And that answer applies to all of them. I follow the ‘A lot’ with this: Too Many.”

These critters are so successful in adapting to the subtropics of the Everglades in particular they could change the face of South Florida in the next few years, rendering roughly 5,000 years of evolved ecosystem unrecognizable by mid-century or just after, he warns.

That is, unless Floridians put a great deal more effort and money into fighting invasive species before their impacts are widely visible, not after.

 

If we don’t, he asks, “What could the Everglades look like in 2050 or 2060?

“Well, it won’t be Everglades National Park any longer. It’ll be Invasive Species National Park.”

Mr. Mazzotti heads the University’s Croc Docs, who describe themselves as “a team of biologists, ecological modelers, and outreach specialists (who) conduct long-term, applied research and monitoring focused on crocodilians, invasive reptiles, threatened and endangered species, climate changes, and human dimensions.”

For the last 15 years or so, he’s devoted half his time, at least, to fighting invasive species.

The two biggest questions any Floridian should ask are these, he suggests: What might an invasive creature’s impacts be, and how soon can we begin an aggressive battle to stop these animals before we see them?

“In terms of invasive impacts, we’ve only been able to demonstrate negative impacts with two: Burmese pythons and Cuban tree frogs,” he admits.

“The pythons’ presence correlates directly with the decline of mammals. And the impact Cuban tree frogs have had on native tree frogs is devastating and demonstrable.”

What difference could that make?

“We haven’t looked at the cascading effects,” he says. “It’s particularly relevant though, since native tree frogs, the green frogs, are very edible. Lots of other creatures like to eat them. Cuban tree frogs less so because there’s a mucus membrane in their thighs that makes them ‘hot’ — the equivalent of you eating a ghost pepper. That’s got to have cascading effects.”

Just as the impacts of Argentine black and white tegus will have cascading effects so far not quantifiable. And they’re spreading rapidly.

“We have pictures of black and white tegus emerging with eggs from alligator nests,” he explains. “In one nest we followed, every egg in the nest was taken by a tegu. And right now we have established populations in Charlotte County and in Miami-Dade. From Miami-Dade we’ve removed over 1,000 tegus this year alone, and in the 400- to 500-range in previous years.”

This isn’t just about science or the health of our ecosystem, he notes; it’s about politics, a willingness to devote resources now rather than later, and a determined strategy.

“I want to make an important point about impacts,” Mr. Mazzotti adds.

“That is, if we wait until we see impacts of invasive species on native systems, it’s too late to do anything about them. Burmese pythons? Too late to do anything about that.

“We have to put away this idea that the only impacts we’ll work on are the ones we see. Then every battle you walk into, you will lose.”

Fight on the ground

A number of men and women now pursue these animals as paid hunters or just do-good volunteers. Some creatures can be trapped, like tegus, which eat any eggs of any creature they can find. So raccoon or opossum traps baited with eggs can be used to lure them out of hiding.

In the case of Ms. Kalil, she loves natural Florida, where she grew up on the southeast coast in and around Miami, so she works to protect it from destructive invasive creatures of all kinds, with both passion and love, she says.

It’s a family affair. Now 57, she first met her lawyer husband Craig in high school while wearing her pet snake under her hat. “So he knew what he was getting into from the beginning,” she says.

The Kalils have two children: an aerospace engineer (her son, Christopher) and a lawyer (her daughter, Deanna). All of them back her up on hunts if need be, she says; so does her brother, Dave Mucci, who has an iguana removal business in the Keys. He taught her to appreciate snakes as a girl, rather than fear them, she says, and now she’s intent on removing pythons just to reduce the damage they can do, as well.

But she’s equally intent on protecting native snakes, including eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, water moccasins and the non-venomous varieties.

“The most dangerous thing about hunting pythons at night, or getting out of your car to try to save something like an eastern diamondback or a moccasin by helping it off the road, is getting hit by another car,” she says.

Mostly she hunts at night, driving a 22-year-old Ford Expedition outfitted with special lights, along the remote levees, hoping to catch the snakes crossing from one water body to another, or hunting along the waterline of a levy or canal. For years she tried hunting them on foot and never saw one. Then she came across her first big python crossing a road on Christmas night, 2015, and never looked back, she says.

Mrs. Kalil carries a shotgun in the vehicle and sometimes a handgun on her person, in case she gets in trouble, but guns are not how these hunters capture their prey in the first place.

They do it by hand, walking up to the snake — lying still and hoping it’s invisible, she figures — and grabbing the head first, before anything else, to avoid being bitten.

If they’re not more than about 10 or 12 feet long, she lets them wrap around her legs while she works them into a bag. She’s taken on a 12½-foot snake alone, but she won’t try a bigger one unless she has trusted back-up help to grab and control the tail, when she gets the head. She keeps them alive, in the bag, so she won’t have to refrigerate carcasses until she’s ready to turn them over to an agency — the SFWMD or FWC — then she euthanizes them, shooting them in the head with a .22 hollow point round.

Her object is to protect herself but also avoid harassing or torturing the snake any more than necessary.

On one occasion, she recalls, she parked and went after a python on the waterline of a levy without realizing at first how big it was.

“I went down there with my .44, I stepped into the water to get closer to her, and as I did she turned and came at me. Luckily she stopped for a second to decide if I was prey. In that second as she was deciding, I took a shot. I’m a marksman. I shot her in the head.

Fortunately, she had the .44 handgun. Unfortunately, it wasn’t loaded with magnum rounds. She’d loaded it instead with snake pellet bullets, as she calls them.

“The pellets just bounced off her head, but she turned away. I chased her into the weeds to get her, but she was gone.” She brought in other hunters, and for about 10 days they searched for that big snake. Without success.

“Some day, I’m going to get an 18-foot python with pock marks in its head, and I’ll know,” she says.

She’s had other misadventures, too. A “little” python she’d captured and gripped by the head, a creature about 7 or 8 feet in length, quickly wrapped itself around her neck when she tried to answer a cellphone call from her daughter. She dropped the phone but couldn’t pull it off with her free hand.

“And I couldn’t let go of the head because I didn’t want to get bitten in the face,” she recalls. “It was choking off both my carotid arteries. I started to get light-headed in about 30 seconds.”

Fortunately she was working with a nearby companion, another hunter. She alerted him and he rescued her.

Other hunters have had similarly close calls; one man working alone got wrapped by a big snake “and fortunately he was able to get to his gun, and shoot it,” she says. “I wouldn’t recommend trying this for anybody who hasn’t been trained or isn’t familiar with pythons. There could be a fatality.”

That kind of education has taught her both caution and procedural care, she says. She follows the rules for safe hunting, and she goes prepared.

“I don’t go out there in shorts and barefoot, I go completely covered head to toe,” she explains. “I don’t care about getting bit. I don’t want to, but I’ll take it if I have to. A friend of mine got bit in the knuckle, one of the teeth came out, and he had trouble for almost a year. He wasn’t wearing gloves. I don’t want teeth in me.”

Pythons aren’t the only creatures she encounters who shouldn’t be there, either.

“The non-natives I’ve come across include feral hogs, iguanas, bufo (cane) toads, cats and dogs. Cats are like the worst animal out there, world-wide, hands down, eating birds, lizards, frogs, anything. I say that, and I’ve been with a cat refuge for several years.”

And if you mention cats, you have to mention dogs, too, she says.

“Dogs are out there, too, and when they pack up, they’re a terror. Same with the iguanas.

“We’re finding iguanas more so this year than ever before. They’re expanding their range, I think because we haven’t had any cold snaps in the last couple years. We’ve had iguanas since the 1950s — whenever we started importing pets. People have been letting them go since the ’50s. Unscrupulous dealers, pet owners. And now us taxpayers have to pay for that.”

Although data collection and the engineering of new technologies that might allow hunters to move from containment to eradication — or at least good control — is all helpful, it’s a lot more helpful before the impact is apparent, not after, concludes Mr. Mazzotti.

And we aren’t doing it.

“One of things we’re not doing is called early detection and rapid response. You find an invasive species early, you respond rapidly and with brute force,” he says.

“Around the world that’s proven to be the single most effective way to deal with invasive species. Despite knowing that, we have yet to muster that effort in Florida. Until we do, were just going to be playing catch up.”

Python Elimination Program

The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board is taking aggressive action to protect the Everglades and eliminate invasive pythons from its public lands. Started in March 2017, the Python Elimination Program incentivizes a limited number of public-spirited individuals to kill these destructive snakes, which have become an apex predator in the Everglades. The program provides access to participants on designated SFWMD lands in Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier and Palm Beach counties: www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program. ¦

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